


shakes me, makes me lighter

by amurderof



Series: fearless on my breath [2]
Category: Dragon Age (Video Games), Dragon Age: Inquisition
Genre: Alpha/Beta/Omega Dynamics, Alpha/Omega, Knotting, M/M, Mating Cycles/In Heat, Omega Verse
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-08-17
Updated: 2015-08-17
Packaged: 2018-04-15 03:57:54
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,626
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4592052
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/amurderof/pseuds/amurderof
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>He keeps the aqun-asala powder in a jar on his dressing table. Every three months he spoons some of it into a mug and mixes it into the water with his finger. It's supposed to be tasteless, but when he swallows it down it lingers on his tongue, affects the taste of anything else he eats for the next couple days, mutes everything. He gets a kick outta eating spicy shit all lackadaisically and offering it to people, and acting surprised when it burns their mouths. (When he explains it to Sera, after she's stopped crying and threatening to stab him with one of his own horns, she thinks it's hilarious — tries to talk him into letting her have enough to prank people, actually. He knows exactly how much is left in the jar though, and he's not sure he's ever gonna get more... so she has to make do with sitting next to him and watching.)</p>
<p>"So it keeps you from losing it, huh?" she asks, glaring down into her empty flagon like she doesn't know where the beer got off to. "No squishy <i>pffff</i>—" she puffs up her cheeks and sets the flagon down, curving her hands into a circle and then moving them apart, "—for the qunari pokers?"</p>
            </blockquote>





	shakes me, makes me lighter

**Author's Note:**

> i'm just pleased it's finally finished tbh! i expect there to be ~1 more part to this series. \o/
> 
> a multitude of thanks to everybody who's cheerleaded (cheerled?) over the past weeks, and a big I LOVE YOU :3 to all y'all who don't really like abo but have given this a try regardless.

He keeps the powder in a jar on his dressing table. Every three months he spoons some of it into a mug and mixes it into the water with his finger. It's supposed to be tasteless, but when he swallows it down it lingers on his tongue, affects the taste of anything else he eats for the next couple days, mutes everything. He gets a kick outta eating spicy shit all lackadaisically and offering it to people, and acting surprised when it burns their mouths. (When he explains it to Sera, after she's stopped crying and threatening to stab him with one of his own horns, she thinks it's hilarious — tries to talk him into letting her have enough to prank people, actually. He knows exactly how much is left in the jar though, and he's not sure he's ever gonna get more... so she has to make do with sitting next to him and watching.)

"So it keeps you from losing it, huh?" she asks, glaring down into her empty flagon like she doesn't know where the beer got off to. "No squishy pffff—" she puffs up her cheeks and sets the flagon down, curving her hands into a circle and then moving them apart, "—for the qunari pokers?"

Bull laughs, remembering the exact color of Dorian's flush when Sera had first called him a fireplace, all hot and ready to go off — not with shame though. Bull would've talked to her if Dorian had looked ashamed to hear it. He just looked shocked about it being said out loud, then surprised about nobody giving a rat’s ass about it.

Bull shakes his head, has to clear the image of the way Dorian's mouth had parted while he ran his tongue over his lips, nervous. "Nah, I'm still fully-functional. Just keeps me from going into rut, keeps my head above water."

Sera snorts and smacks her palm against the table top. "Borrring, why would you ever. It's fun to lose your head sometimes."

"We're all the better for me keeping my head in the game," Bull replies easily, and Sera lets out a long raspberry, and Bull swigs down his beer and doesn't think about how many months' of aqun-asala powder he's got left in that jar.

 

==

 

Dorian's a kinky little shit when he wants to be — or, more accurately, when he feels comfortable enough. He hints at stuff Bull's done, what Bull knows the ins and outs of but wouldn't suggest — too concerned about making Dorian feel like Bull was pressuring him into it — and then begs for it, demands it when Bull's got him laid out across his bed, arms pinioned to the mattress, legs spread. Dorian's cock is gorgeous, arched up against his stomach, and his ass is beyond words, his pink little hole tight around three of Bull's fingers even after Bull's been working him for what must have been half an hour already.

"Fuck me," Dorian breathes out, voice still crackling from his first orgasm, when Bull swallowed his pretty dick down. "Bull, fuck me, use your fingers after."

"Yeah?" Bull asks, a slow grin spreading across his face when he glances up at Dorian. "Or I could make you come again, from this." It's easy to angle his fingers, press up against the nub that makes Dorian lose coherence for a moment, shudder and slam his head back.

"After," Dorian hisses, tossing his head on his pillow like he's disagreeing with himself. "Fuck me, and then I want your fingers, stoppering me up."

Bull hums low at that, ducking forward to press a kiss to Dorian's hip. "Keep telling you we could get something made for that."

"And I could have something made to replace your absurdly large member, but I rather prefer the real thing when available."

Bull laughs, moving his mouth over Dorian's skin, licking at the beads of sweat pooling in the dip near Dorian's navel. "Don't knock it till you've tried it, babe."

Dorian huffs and lifts his hips up, knocking his belly against Bull's chin, his cock glancing off Bull's cheek; and Dorian's laugh is cut short when Bull slides another finger into him.

"Oh, just fuck me with wild abandon," Dorian eventually gets out, throwing an arm across his face, and he bites down on his lower lip when Bull removes his fingers and shifts onto his knees. " _Take_ ," Dorian snarls, and when Bull maneuvers him the way he wants him, kicks Bull's back with a heel. "My watchword is _archon_ and yours is _katoh_ and you will fuck me until I scream."

“Bossy,” Bull coos, and Dorian’s responding laugh is cut off, skittering into a low _fuck_ as Bull guides his cock into him.

Later, Bull's fingers curled inside of him, Dorian lets out a long sigh, stretching like a cat, his toes pointing, his arms reaching up above his head. He drops his elbows to Bull's shoulders, brushing his knuckles across Bull's jawline, up over his cheeks. Bull loves him like this, content and warm and well-fucked, tactile in a way he rarely is outside of these moments.

"You're so good to me," Dorian murmurs, eyes closed, head resting against Bull's forearm. "So attentive."

Bull chuckles, flexing his arm and unsettling Dorian, whose face scrunches up like it does when he's gotten a face full of bright light in the morning. "You complaining, kadan?"

Dorian smacks him with one hand, palm flat against the side of Bull's face, before relaxing again.

He smirks, and hums. "I can't wait until your next rut. I'll get to take care of you in the most selfish way available."

Bull thinks immediately of the jar, and how little of the aqun-asala’s left. Half a year, if he's lucky — he could ration it out maybe, see what he's like with half a dose. Double the time he's got left.

"Bull?" Dorian's eyes open, his forehead furrowing.

Bull forces himself to relax, and flexes his fingers in Dorian's ass as a distraction — Dorian shudders, and bites down on his bottom lip. Bull leans in and kisses him, taking that lip between his own teeth.

Dorian won't forget this later. He’ll bring it up again and not let Bull change the subject. But Bull can buy himself some time to figure out what he's gonna say.

 

==

 

Bull's been called in by tamassrans before, done his part, fell into his rut and fucked whoever they'd picked out. The first time had been almost too much, off the aqun-asala and trying to control himself while every ounce of his body wanted to touch, to fuck. It was all monitored though — he was never alone. He knew if he ever got dangerous, there were tamassrans on hand to take care of it, and whichever omega he'd been matched with would be all right if he wasn’t. It was safe, if kind of clinical. But breeding wasn't about feeling good, about having fun: it was about a suitable alpha and omega that would produce the best offspring.

Bull was worried that first time, certain he'd hurt somebody, but it'd gone fine. Nobody got hurt, and nobody got hurt the second time either, or the third — but he knows his size and his strength, and he knows those results have more to do with the tamassrans being there, to intercede when needed. He doesn't remember... _everything_ , but he knows one time he got knocked out, too out of it even after he'd knotted. He can't have hurt the omega; they'd have taken him out of the breeding program if he were that dangerous. But he'd been close a couple times, overwhelmed...

He gives himself a half-dose at the beginning of his next rut. He feels it, the _urge_ , like the feeling he gets when the boss takes him dragon-hunting with her. It's deep within his stomach, as though he could eat and satiate it — but it bleeds out through his chest, his legs, down through every nerve like he's been electrified. A pressing need that makes him more aware of the people moving around him, the smell of their sweat, the heat of their skin.

Cassandra is an alpha. He could ask her how she manages, because he knows she excuses herself for her own ruts. He isn't privy to details though — makes it a point to not figure it out, out of respect for her privacy. Plus she's human, and a Seeker besides — he doesn't doubt templars have their own ways of dealing with this shit.

They've got other qunari in the keep as well, but they're all Vashoth like the boss, so they've dealt with anything that comes up on their own since they were born.

Bull supposes you figure shit out right quick when you don't have an alternative: what you've gotta be careful of, when you lose yourself. All he's got is memories of watchful eyes and firm hands holding him in place when he couldn’t manage it on his own.

Well, and the aqun-asala, which he's got enough of left to last him another rut, and only because he's split it up and is dealing with whatever the fuck this half-rut is now.

When Dorian comes to his room that night, Bull’s in the middle of writing a report. They don’t get sent anywhere anymore, but the process has always calmed him, helped him focus. He found after he’d gone Tal-Vashoth that putting everything into perspective, like he was telling it to a superior, made it… easier. It’s a variation of a technique he learned after Seheron: you have more control over your brain, and by extension your body, than you’d think. Tell your brain something enough times and even if you knew it wasn’t true, you’d act like it was.

Doesn’t work all the time though.

Dorian’s dressed down, no robe strapped over his leathers, dark shoulders and arms bare. He gives Bull a dazzling smile and saunters towards Bull at his desk, setting the bottle of wine and glasses he’d brought with him next to the stack of Bull’s past fake reports.

Bull tells himself that he’s in control, that the tension arcing through his body isn’t blurring his vision, that when he breathes Dorian in he’s gonna stay sitting where he is.

“And how goes your journaling this evening?” Dorian asks, loosening the cork on the wine with a wave of his hand and catching it with a flourish when it pops out. The scent of wine flooding the room is almost too much — a sudden rush of tart spice that has Bull holding his breath. “Anything interesting I may have missed?”

Bull forces himself to look down at the pages of parchment, to read over one paragraph instead of standing up, wrapping his arms around Dorian and going from there. “Cole’s started asking Sera’s advice on stuff that’ll make people happy, since he can’t read everybody’s minds as well anymore. Said she made people laugh, so she should know.”

“Oh, that will end well, I’m sure,” Dorian says with a bark of laughter. He pours the wine and takes up one of the glasses, breathing in the scent before taking a healthy swig. “Now _this_ is worth savoring, for once.”

When Bull looks back up at him, Dorian’s eyes are fixed on his face, and Bull finds himself swallowing uncomfortably, shifting on his seat. He should tell Dorian to leave, fancy it up somehow so Dorian doesn’t take it personally; but then Dorian’s wearing what he does when he’s interested in slow and intense, and if Bull begs off there’s gonna be questions.

In lieu of lying out his ass, Bull drinks his own damn wine and — shit, and has to give himself some time to process the flavors. Should’ve asked Dorian if there was any chance of that Ferelden piss, not something with bite.

When he meets Dorian's eyes again, Dorian's brows are lowered and his lips are pursed. "Sorry," Bull starts, "feeling under the weather."

And Dorian's expression doesn't lighten — grows infinitely more thunderous, like he can tell Bull's telling some version of the truth but still lying to him. Like he's... shit. Bull breathes in slow and deep, closing his eye. Like he's worried.

Bull sets his wine on the desk and drags a hand across his face."Don't think I'm up for much tonight."

Dorian makes this small sad noise, and then he's behind Bull, digging his thumbs into Bull's shoulders with little enough warning that Bull tenses — and then moans as he relaxes into it. "Shit." His skin burns under Dorian’s hands, each touch like a strike from a hot iron.

"Yes, use your words," Dorian says archly, and Bull feels Dorian’s lips brush against the base of his skull. "Should I have a bath drawn for you?"

"That'd be real nice," Bull replies, the words barely making it out of his throat, and Dorian hums and works a knuckle into a particularly vicious muscle along his neck.

 

==

 

Bull's dick can't help but get interested as he sits naked in a tub and Dorian rubs a soapy washcloth across his back, but Dorian doesn't make note of it beyond letting himself get an eyeful. Bull's grateful for the acceptance of his uncharacteristic disinterest, regardless of what his dick’s thinking about the situation... Regardless of what Bull’s envisioning happening — grabbing Dorian by the arm and pulling him into his lap, getting his hole loose, fucking into him for _hours_ until his voice goes hoarse from screaming —

He leans his head forward, between his shoulders, and breathes in slow. Ignores the heat and tension in his gut. Focuses on the broad situation.

Dorian's gonna ask about this eventually. It's only a matter of time, and Bull's only making it worse by delaying.

“Will you be all right?” Dorian asks him, and there’s that thread of disappointment running through the concern. Not at the situation — Dorian’s fine with nothing happening when Bull’s not feeling it; but at Bull, maybe. Disappointed Bull’s still not telling him what’s wrong. It’s understandable. Bull won’t hold it against him.

“I’ll be good, kadan,” Bull replies, covering Dorian’s hands on his shoulders with his own. “I’ll be good.”

 

==

 

And he is good. He gets there, once he can trust himself again.

As soon as Bull’s rut goes back to whatever fresh hellscape it came from, he picks Dorian up at the waist and throws him over his shoulder, smiling big at Dorian’s squawks of pleased outrage and the aggrieved look on Cullen’s face for interrupting their chess game. (Cullen was going to win; it was a foregone conclusion as soon as Dorian had argued for black.)

Dorian stretches across their bed like a happy cat after, curling his toes into the sheets, and brushes his fingertips against the headboard. “Oh, I missed that,” he purrs, and Bull laughs at him kindly and drops kisses across his dark skin.

 

==

 

The aqun-asala runs out. He knew it was going to. It's not a surprise, but he still sits on the edge of his bed and holds the jar, passing it between his hands. He could talk to Josephine, see if she had any connections in... but no, the Inquisition burned that bridge a long time ago. No Qunari would have anything to do with them, let alone begrudgingly trade contraceptives.

He damn sure misses being a savage Qunari, what with all of their brutish _actual medicine_. He bets if he went to one of the healers in the courtyard, they'd recommend leeches.

Which... shit, there's _sort of_ an option.

Stitches takes the jar from him and holds it to his nose, frowning when he breathes in whatever's left in it. "You should've brought some of it to me," he says reasonably, putting the lid back on the empty jar and setting it on the long table in the room he shares with Grim. "Could've tried to figure it out if I had a sample. I'll bet it's too much to ask that you know what goes in it?"

Bull shrugs a shoulder and heads over to look at the shelves of plants and animal bits Stitches has lining the walls of the room. (Bull's not entirely sure where Grim fits, with all of Stitches' shit everywhere.) "Anything I gave to you would be a dose I didn't get."

He grabs a jar and unscrews the lid, giving the contents a whiff — and grimaces, recapping it and putting it back. “There are whole roles devoted to creating it, to sourcing what you need and combining it all right. I wouldn’t be able to figure it out even if I had everything in front of me.”

Stitches lets out a long sigh and licks his finger before sticking it into the jar. His face twists up when he sticks his finger in his mouth, and Bull chuckles when he hurries over to his desk to pour himself a glass of water to wash the taste from his tongue.

“Well, it tastes like shit, so we know not to start with anything particularly edible.”

Bull huffs a laugh, and carefully doesn’t hope.

 

==

 

He does bring it up with Cassandra.

He has a month until his next rut, give or take a week, and it's unlikely Stitches can replicate the aqun-asala. Dorian’s last heat never came and Bull knows why only because Dorian had flushed cherry red when Bull’d asked — apparently that’s a thing. “In partnered pairs or,” and Dorian had cut himself off, unsure of the words, or surprised that he had a chance to say them, to ever explain this, _fuck_ Tevinter. “Or people who regularly share heats, their cycles align. I’m surprised it hasn’t happened sooner, to be honest.”

And Dorian’s not an idiot. He knows Bull hasn’t gone into rut since they’ve known each other. Bull’s not sure what he’s been telling himself to explain it, and Bull hasn’t said anything by way of an explanation because he’s a damn coward. Dorian hasn’t asked because he’s better at this relationship thing than he gives himself credit for.

Cassandra’s sitting at a long table in the blacksmith’s, parchment spread before her like she’s trying to match up information from multiple sources, but she looks up quickly when Bull darkens the doorway.

"I'm sorry, Bull, I've no time to spar this afternoon. These reports will be the death of me, and if they are not, Josephine will be if I do not get them to her." She gives him a firm smile, and he lets out a slow sigh. He lets the desperation he feels in the marrow of his bones show on his face, and she stills, her hand halfway to picking her ink pen back up. She leans back and scrutinizes his expression, the rounding of his shoulders, and nods once. "Sit down, Bull."

"Thanks, Seeker. I'll take the brunt of Josie's wrath if you need a meat shield." Bull smiles, and her frown intensifies. He sits, and rubs at his eye with his palm. Tries to think about how he's even supposed to start this. May as well take it from the top: people get weirded out less when they've got all the information in front of them, even if it can sometimes blindside ‘em. "The Qun teaches that everything and everyone has its time and place, has a duty. So as soon as you're old enough, they hand you this jar, fits in your palm, and instruct you how to use it if it's not your time. You only go into rut or heat when the tamassrans need you to, to breed. It's straightforward, makes sense for when you're out in a warzone: you just mix it into a cup of water and you're good to go."

Cassandra's still frowning, but it's contemplative now, like something's slotting into place for her. He’d guess she’s reconsidering the Qunari and Kirkwall, given how she only Varric's book to go off of originally — and sure, this isn't about Hawke, but the Qunari sure had a lot to do with what went down there. Fuck, Bull'd guess most of the Arishok's stranded antaam was on its way to running out of aqun-asala. They were probably on the verge of losing their minds.

"How long does a jar last?"

He breathes out slow, shifting on the bench. "Full up, about a year. There’s a group of tamassrans whose sole responsibility is mixing it up for everybody. I got resupplied when Gatt first showed up, before everything went to shit."

She purses her lips. “How long has it…” She cuts herself off, her brow furrowing even deeper. “This is an inappropriate question for me to ask, but I’m. How long has it been since you last…?” She circles the fingers of one of her hands, as though prompting him to finish the sentence for her.

And, shit, she’s already going outside of her wheelhouse talking to him about this in the first place. He can do the heavy lifting. “I haven’t reported back to the tamassrans for breeding since I left for the south.”

Her eyes widen. “Bull, that’s — surely that’s unsafe, to suppress one’s rut for so long.”

Bull shrugs, and then lets out a low laugh when she glares at him. “Biggest problem I’m facing now is what to do next time. I’ve got a month until the next one hits.” He doesn’t tell her about how that just complicates things with Dorian’s heat, not his place to bring that up, but she seems to hear what’s unspoken anyway, raising a hand and pressing her knuckles to her lips while she thinks.

“You learn young, about control and the importance of isolation,” she says, her voice half-muffled; but she doesn’t seem embarrassed to say it, so maybe the position helps. “Without stimulus, one’s rut is uncomfortable but not unendurable. The same philosophy is used for unpaired omegas; though it is more likely for an alpha to be an aggressor than the reverse.”

“Isolated, in Skyhold?” Bull asks, though he knows something’s gotta exist, if Cassandra’s suggesting it.

She nods once, lowering her hand from her mouth, and then sets him with a firm smile. “And if you are concerned, there is very little within it to break.”

 

==

 

Dorian's expression has gone brittle, and Bull hates himself for keeping this to himself for so long. Cowardice, mostly. Fucking cowardice.

"Could you say that again?"

Bull breathes in slowly and rubs his thumb across his brow. "I can't be there for your next heat."

Dorian's already nodding halfway through Bull's reply, his mouth a thin line. He crosses his arms, rolling his shoulders back. "And I suspect you will simply be indisposed elsewhere?” Bull’s glad he waited till they were alone -- Dorian wouldn't be honest with how he felt if Bull'd mentioned something in public. In Bull’s room, they can both be transparent.

He nods, dragging his teeth along his bottom lip. "Cassandra's gonna let me use one of the isolation rooms in the tower."

Dorian swallows, and his arms tighten across his chest. His body’s tense, like he’s ready to make a break for the door as soon as the conversation’s over. "Obviously that's your decision to make."

"I haven't had a rut in 13 years," Bull replies with what he should’ve fucking led with, and Dorian's face goes slack with surprise.

“You _what_?” Dorian’s mouth falls open and stays that way, until he begins forming silent syllables, struck dumb. Bull figures it was something Dorian hadn’t considered. Bull keeps this shit too close to the vest.

He drags a hand across his face and shrugs. “I don’t trust myself with you. That I’ll keep my wits about me.”

“You would never hurt me,” Dorian snaps, like he’s outraged at the mere idea.

Bull feels a weird sort of pride in Dorian’s certainty, but he shakes his head, catching Dorian’s hands up in his and raising them to his mouth, pressing kisses to his knuckles. Dorian sways into the touch and Bull watches a kind of desperation slide over his face.

“Bull, you would never hurt me,” he repeats, more solemn this time, and Bull cracks a smile at him, like it’s gonna somehow reassure him.

Dorian just looks petulant. Good look on him, and Bull chuckles, and holds Dorian’s hands to his chest. “You’ve gotta let me determine that, kadan.”

“Do I? Because it seems to me you’re being needlessly cautious.” Dorian scoffs, but he doesn’t try and pull his hands away. Means Bull’s gonna win this, for varying definitions of the word “win”.

“I’m sorry,” Bull says, and Dorian closes his eyes and leans forward, and Bull dutifully presses a kiss to his forehead.

 

==

 

It's not as bad as he'd expected.

It's like surfacing after diving into a deep lake, everything around you too bright and loud after long seconds of muffled sounds, blurred figures. The water rushing from your mouth and your ears and your nose, until you breathe in and it all snaps back to you. Reality.

He spends the first day reading, nothing better to do. The vellum pages feel heavy in his hands, and he loses time with his fingertips against the book's leather spine. He can feel each fucking groove in the leather.

He smells the maid before he hears her soft-soled shoes against the stones, smells the meat she must be bringing to him. Cassandra had explained that the kitchens were well-prepared to deliver food to the isolation rooms, all you needed to do was make 'em aware -- and sure enough, the hatch at the bottom of the door slides open and a tray's pushed through.

Makes him feel a little bit like a prisoner, though he supposes the food's better.

He eats and drinks, and he reads, and he feels fine, if more aware of his surroundings. Which is fine. He's doing good.

 

==

 

It's early morning, pink light pouring through the high window opposite the door, and Bull wakes with a pounding headache and a throbbing dick. He lets out a curse, mouth dry, and fumbles with the tie of his trousers. His fingers are too fucking big, his hands sweaty. He bites back another curse and knocks his head back against the shitty pillow on the shitty cot in this shitty room, and reaches down, palming himself through the fabric which feels like -- like coarse wool, fucking terrible.

But it's better than the need that hits him when he stops, when he wraps his hand around the side of the cot and feels the wood strain under his grip.

He... remembers this, the sudden onslaught. And he remembers a tamassran cupping his jaw and murmuring to him, words of... of comfort. And commands, instructions for his role, for what they wished of him, and that was easy, made things infinitely easier. There was a purpose to the need building in him, to the heat crawling up his spine.

There is no purpose here. He's lying on a cot in a tiny room, and his blood is on fire.

 

==

 

Time passes. It has to, even if he can’t gauge the speed of it, can’t figure out what time it is through the haze over his mind. There’s sunlight in the room, but he doesn’t know if it’s morning or afternoon. He knows he’s eaten twice… three times. Pissed and shat and tried and failed to think past the fucking thunderstorm going on behind his eye.

It’s… he doesn’t know how long it’s been, when his senses lock onto something, some _one_ outside the door. He got rid of his trousers an age ago and his every limb feels like it weighs a thousand pounds. His fucking dick’s sore. When he shoves himself off of the cot he sways forward with the momentum and has to hustle to keep on his feet -- ends up palms flat on the far wall as he steadies himself. It’s like he… drunk a lot, drunk a lot and instead of a hangover he just stayed drunk.

He staggers towards the door and whoever the fuck’s on the other side, whoever’s lighting up parts of his head that’ve been stagnant since this bullshit started, is right on the other side, he can hear ‘em breathing. He can _smell_ them, like they’d bathed in a tub of perfume and not bothered with rinsing.

There’s a sharp voice then, too damn loud, echoing between Bull’s ears, something about _control_ and _danger_ and the growl starts in Bull’s chest when there’s a response, words muffled but voice clear enough to be Dorian, right on the other side of the door. Right on the other side of the frigging door, Dorian, who’s -- _shit_. Who’s going through his heat. Who’s _right there_.

Bull presses his palms flat against the door and breathes in as deep as he can. His whole body shakes when he exhales. He wants… he doesn’t know what the fuck he wants. He could probably get out, rush the door and splinter it. Built to house elves originally, no real match for a qunari -- and he considers it, leans into the door to hear it creak.

The voices rise in volume in the hallway and Bull pulls himself back, steps away from the door and shakes his head to clear some of the haze, to let himself _think_ instead of want. Because he doesn’t know what he wants. He doesn’t -- but he’s glad Dorian’s on the other side of the door. Glad Josephine manages the keys to the isolation rooms.

Glad when there’s quiet on the other side of the door, Dorian hustled off somewhere safe.

Bull turns his back to the door and slides down onto his ass. Tips his head back and breathes in what’s left of the scent of his -- of Dorian. Spits into his palm and strokes himself off to the thought of Dorian seeking him out, heat-addled and needy. Knots his own damn grip and keens because it’s fucking _wrong_ , nothing to hold him, to hold onto, nothing to soothe how alone he is in this godforsaken room, or how overexposed he feels.

==

“Based upon your initial concerns, I had expected you to break down the door.”

Bull looks up from the wages balance sheet he’s been forcing himself to concentrate on for the last hour. Normally he can crank one out in fifteen minutes, but it’s been hard to focus on intangibles -- proposed equipment cost versus actuals makes his head pound.

There’s no fire lit in the hearth because the light and the heat emanating from the candle on his desk was almost too much to handle on its own. Dorian’s mostly in shadow where he stands just inside Bull’s room. The candlelight flickers across his face, highlighting his cheekbones, the tip of his nose, his pursed lips.

His posture’s relaxed -- no, not relaxed, _tired_ , in the same way Bull remembers from the months before the two of ‘em started anything. Bull wonders, if he could see him right, if Dorian’s eyes would be as glassy as his own feels.

Dorian clears his throat, and Bull remembers he said something.

“Wanna elaborate?”

Dorian huffs a laugh and pushes himself away from the wall, moving closer into the dancing candlelight. There are dark circles under his eyes. Bull wants to reach up and run his thumbs under them. Kiss them. He stays where he’s sat but turns in the chair.

Dorian’s hair’s a mess. All he’s probably done for the last 24 hours is sleep, and as soon as he woke up he made his way here without looking in his mirror. “You were convinced you would be unsafe,” Dorian says, his smile just as tired as the rest of him.

“I was damn close to it. I was a fucking mess,” Bull replies bluntly, and lays down his pen. He pushes past the memory -- the desperation, the relentless _need_ of it, how easy it would’ve been to bust his way outta that room.

Dorian hums, and raises his hand up between them, holding it just to the side of Bull’s face. Bull forces himself still. Forces himself to ignore the urge to lean into the touch -- pushes himself past it.

He breathes in slowly, and then out, and when Dorian moves his hand to cup Bull’s jaw, Bull’s whole fucking body shudders.

“And you did not,” Dorian tells him, tone firm. He rubs his thumb across Bull’s chin and Bull closes his eye. “You could have gotten to me, out in that hallway. I put very few limitations on your strength. The door would not have held you.”

Bull swallows. Starts to shake his head and stops. ‘Course it was some sort of experiment. Dorian trying to prove something, Dorian wanting to be _right_. Fuck, but it makes Bull want to draw him into his arms and kiss him as much as he wants to shake him for doing something so stupid.

“That should’ve been a fucking mess,” Bull mutters, and Dorian laughs and leans forward to kiss the top of Bull’s head, his lips dry and rough against Bull’s skin.

Bull can’t say it’s proof. He’s not cavalier enough to let that count as evidence, as him keeping his head. Next time, they can take it slow -- _somehow_ , ask somebody to check in maybe. Dorian won’t want to hear that. Dorian’ll hate the idea from conception through implementation.

Bull presses into Dorian’s touch, and slots each of his thoughts carefully where they need to go, so he can dig into ‘em later.

Now, he curves his hands over Dorian’s hips and makes Dorian laugh: “And I’d kind of thought you’d sought me out ‘cuz you were just so lonesome, so you’ve ruined that fantasy.”

**Author's Note:**

> thank you thank you for reading. ♥ i'd love to hear from you, either via a comment below or in [my askbox on tumblr](http://amurderof.tumblr.com)!

**Works inspired by this one:**

  * [shakes me, makes me lighter [PODFIC]](https://archiveofourown.org/works/13053954) by [Opalsong](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Opalsong/pseuds/Opalsong)




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